It is just two years to go until the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games get underway.
Paris 2024 and Milano Cortina 2026 may have felt like only yesterday, but Team GB sights are now firmly set on California.
It will be the third time Los Angeles has hosted the Olympics but that doesn't mean there isn't room for plenty of new innovations. Here is what it has in store.
Cricket and lacrosse return for the first time in over a century
One of the world’s oldest ball sports, cricket, is set to return to the Olympic programme for the first time since the Paris Games in 1900.
The competition will comprise six teams playing T20 matches, the fastest major form of cricket, where each side faces 20 overs each in an innings.
As for lacrosse, it has been absent since 1908, and it too will take a fast-paced format, with six-on-six.
A highly popular college sport in the United States, there have been calls to allow Haudenosaunee Nationals to compete as a team, for whom lacrosse is an ancient spiritual pursuit.
SoFi Stadium brings new level to swimming
Despite being a traditional grass stadium that hosts NFL teams Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, the SoFi Stadium is being transformed as soon as the final throes of the opening ceremony end.
An enormous swimming pool will be constructed atop the playing surface, holding 600,000 gallons of water, to become the home of swimming for the week.
It means 38,000 people can watch the aquatics at a time, shattering the previous attendance record for swimming at any previous Games. It will be unlike any previous swimming meet.
Squash and flag football make their debuts
Squash fans have cried out for their sport’s inclusion at the Olympics, and they have finally been listened to, as Los Angeles chose to add it to the programme.
Another newcomer will be flag football, bringing the spirit of the NFL and college football to the Olympic stage, as players compete to score touchdowns without getting tagged.
In fact, NFL owners unanimously voted to allow active NFL players to participate in the event, with some caveats included, such as tryouts and team limits.
Track and field turned upside-down
For the first time in living memory, the athletics programme will take place across the first week of the Games, not the second.
This means some of the Games’ most iconic events, such as the 100m and the high jump, will light up the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum right from the off, fanning the flames of the Olympic spirit.
The change comes due to swimming’s shift into the second week, as construction on the temporary pool will take a week after the opening ceremony in the SoFi Stadium. Athletics’ mountains of medals will maintain the first-week action.
Greater female representation
For the first time ever, LA2028 will feature more female athletes than male athletes.
This is largely thanks to the women’s football tournament containing 16 teams, four more than the men’s, but it represents an enormous step in championing women’s sport.
Around 50.5% of the 11,198 Olympians will be women.
Sprint swimming hits the big time
The 50m freestyle has long flown the flag for pure sprint swimming events on its own, but no longer.
Backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly have all been given their own 50m event, which are commonplace at the World Aquatics Championships, but this will be the Olympic debut for all three.
Swimming legends such as Adam Ramsay-Peaty and Sarah Sjöström will be rubbing their hands together with glee. See if you can spot them among the trashing and foaming of the temporary pool in the SoFi Stadium.
Sports climbing’s evolution
Sport climbing was a huge hit when it joined the Olympic programme in 2020, but it came with teething problems.
Only one medal was on offer for both men and women, as all three major disciplines of lead, bouldering, and speed were combined into one competition.
Paris 2024 split that into speed climbing for one medal, and lead and bouldering for another, but in Los Angeles, we will finally get complete devolution of the sport into three medals for both men and women, much to the delight of the climbing specialists. Can Toby Roberts win one of them once again?
Rowing gets a seaside touch
While almost all of the rowing programme remains faithful to previous editions of the Olympics, one crucial change has been made.
Coastal beach sprints are the newest event, as the only one of Los Angeles’ 16 suggested new disciplines to be approved by the IOC, which features the likes of parkour and beach handball.
Beach rowing begins on the sand, where athletes sprint to their boats and take their boats towards the open ocean, sprinting back to the beach.
It’ll certainly be a new look for the Games, though lightweight double scullers will be disappointed to see it has replaced their event in the programme.
Modern pentathlon lives up to its name
After concern grew for the welfare of horses and riders during the show jumping event within modern pentathlon, the IOC gave the sport an ultimatum - change, or lose its Olympic privileges.
In the end, they changed, swapping the age-old show jumping event with obstacle course racing, where athletes traverse a Ninja Warrior-style course in the quickest time possible against an opponent.
It is an appropriate choice, keeping the theme of the modern Olympics that creator Pierre de Coubertin desired, of testing the strengths that a soldier might need - swimming, fencing, running, and shooting.
Obstacle course racing is also a much more accessible sport, and likelier to appeal to the younger audience, as well as aligning with the IOC’s recent urbanisation of the Games.
Sportsbeat 2026